MICHEL MOUFFE
November 7 – December 23, 2016
Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Hong Kong
Michel Mouffe (1957, Brussels) explores the foundations of painting by challenging its limits. His works are built up out of many thin coats of paint and glaze, creating translucent layers that veil each other and blend into an almost immaterial surface. Meanwhile he steps away from the flatness of the surface by implementing subtle protuberances emerging from behind the canvas. As space is marked and the two-dimensionality of the canvas is overcome, his works result in an experience of spatial relationships. The battle between line and colour has been put aside so that the two elements can work hand in hand. Subtlety of colour in Mouffe's paintings is significant—it requires a slowed down gaze in order to see the vibrations of the gradual coloured surface. The lines break the monochrome surfaces as tools that open up, and thus liberate the paintings to give visual expression to the abstract thoughts and ideals of the artist. His works convey sensuality and thought, inviting the viewer to enter into a mutually constructive, psycho-corporeal dialogue, while addressing the limitless space of the painting with all of the viewer’s basic senses.

One of the paintings in this exhibition is titled, Shitao, and its name highlights the position of the painter as a philosopher, similar to when Leonardo Da Vinci wrote about painting as a spiritual thing, “cosa mentale”. Shitao was a Chinese painter, calligrapher and poet during the Qing Dynasty. Well known in the West for his treatise, Citations on Painting, Shitao noted that he soaked up the energy of his subjects as a way to restore breathing. Mouffe’s works likewise want to confirm their aura as a presence, as a humanity depicted by the abstract vibrations of the painting’s materiality. The manifestation of the canvas is a simple expression of the complexity it originated from.

Shitao, Chapter XV: “Anyone can paint, but no one has the Unique Pencil Stroke, because it is essential that painting originates from thought. Thought has thus to embrace the One because the heart has to create and be joyful. In these circumstances, painting can enter the essence of things all the way to the unmeasurable.”

The surfaces of Mouffe’s paintings have a rather skin-like feel due to his creation process. Skin—the human veil—is both a protective boundary and a sensitive opening: it subtly reveals a part of the hidden in a shiver or a sudden blush. In his essay, Le Moi-Peau (The Skin-Ego), philosopher Didier Anzieu metaphorically elaborates on the idea that identity takes shape through the pores of the skin (D. Anzieu, Le Moi-Peau, Paris, 1986). Skin carries imprints, affects and messages. In short, it communicates in the most fragile way. It happens unconsciously, yet is at the fundaments of who we are. Likewise, the protrusions rising from behind the canvas make the skin somewhat flawed, organic, and seemingly lived in.

Mouffe's works are painted paradoxes. Like skin—at once a boundary and an intermediate—they linger between presence and absence, inside and outside. The paintings are not representations of a certain concrete reality, nor does their meaning reside in what is directly shown. Their being cannot be systematically deduced from external factors, but is rather to be found in what is veiled.

People are permeable and in-between in very much the same way as the surface of Mouffe's sculptured paintings, lingering between presence and absence, inside and outside. The artist creates breathing bodies that invite viewers to engage in a back and forth dialogue between reflection and absorption. The pulsating screens offer pure space on which memories and desires can be projected. His particular use of colour, lines and relief functions as a signpost or a guide, but is, of course, not the goal itself. In other words, the monochrome panels represent the sensuality of emotional space, while the lines and bumps function as the roads that lead us there. It is the whole of this that guides the viewer on its way into the unfathomable space behind and within the glazed surface.

HONG KONG —December 9, 2016— Empty Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming expansion. On December 9, 2016, the gallery will open its new 4,500-sq-foot facilities in Tin Wan with two exhibitions: an immersive installation of Takashi Makino’s Cinéma Concret, and a multi-sensory conceptual environment by Hans-Henning Korb. The opening will be followed by performances by Mark Fell, Rian Trianor, Robert Lippok, and Terre Thaemlitz aka DJ Sprinkles (as special guest)

Hans-Henning Korb will present Kaya Cynara, his first solo exhibition in Asia. Spread across three discrete exhibition spaces on Empty Gallery’s 18th floor, Kaya Cynara takes the form of a modular installation comprising ritual performances, expanded sculpture, video installation, and Oculus Rift VR. These complex environments are further activated by Korb’s rituals, in which the spectator is guided through a ceremonial interaction with the various objects and sculptures.
With each exhibition space representing a different realm of consciousness, the spectator experiences Kaya Cynara as a constantly shifting relationship
between inside and outside, virtual and actual, nature and technology. Korb’s work reflects on the convergence of these two spheres within our hypermediated present, and the tenuous role of the human within this complex ecosystem.

These two exhibitions open an exciting new chapter for Empty Gallery, Hong Kong’s only exhibition space dedicated to blurring the boundaries between contemporary art, experimental music, and film. Catalogues for both exhibitions are forthcoming from the gallery’s publishing imprint, Empty Editions.

About Hans-Henning Korb
Hans-Henning Korb (b. 1988) lives and works in Berlin where he graduated from the Berlin University of the Arts, in 2016. Korb’s work transgresses traditional categories, combining sculpture, installation, and performances that involve music, film, computer animation, virtual worlds, plants, and organic processes. Korb completed an MA at the Berlin University of the Arts and studied in the class of Hito Steyerl and the Institute for Spatial Experiments (Institut für Raumexperimente) of Olafur Eliasson. He was a visiting student at the Addis Ababa School of Fine Arts in Ethiopia and the Hunter College in New York.

About Empty Gallery
Empty Gallery is a 4,500-square-foot space located at the edge of Aberdeen Harbor in Tin Wan, Hong Kong. Founded by Stephen Cheng, the gallery showcases both established and emerging artists alongside a program of pioneering multimedia commissions, performances and music. With a special commitment to ephemeral, time-based, and non-object-oriented practices, Empty Gallery is committed to fostering conversation across cultural, geographic, and medium-specific boundaries while serving as a regional hub for the flourishing East Asian art scene.

HONG KONG —December 9, 2016— Empty Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming expansion. On December 9, 2016, the gallery will open its new
4,500-sq-foot facilities in Tin Wan with two exhibitions: an immersive installation of Takashi Makino’s Cinéma Concret, and a multi-sensory conceptual environment by Hans-Henning Korb. The opening will be followed by performances by Mark Fell, Rian Trianor, Robert Lippok, and Terre Thaemlitz aka DJ Sprinkles (as special guest)

Takashi Makino will present an installation version of his 2015 film Cinema Concret, with a new score by the Dutch experimental musician Machinefabriek. This film was previously presented in a traditional screening at the 2016 International Film Fest Rotterdam, but this is the first time it will be adapted for installation in a gallery setting. Constructed through a progressive accumulation of layers and incorporating both analog celluloid and digital video, Cinema Concret is a striking investigation into the limits of perception and the complex relationship between these two forms of media. Textured vistas of film grain, shifting walls of video noise, and scrims of submerged images advance in and out of consciousness, all set to the soundtrack of an
accumulating percussive drone.

Through this exhibition, Makino takes his place alongside other historic mediators between the twin spheres of contemporary art and experimental cinema
such as Tony Conrad, Ken Jacobs, and Anthony McCall. In addition to the installation, a selection of large-scale platinum prints exploring the historical connection between the 19th-century panorama and cinematic practice will be on view.

These two exhibitions open an exciting new chapter for Empty Gallery, Hong Kong’s only exhibition space dedicated to blurring the boundaries between
contemporary art, experimental music, and film. Catalogues for both exhibitions are forthcoming from the gallery’s publishing imprint, Empty Editions.

About Takashi Makino
Takashi Makino (b. 1978) is one of Japan’s leading experimental film artists. In 2001, after graduating from the Cinema Department of Nihon University College of Art, he relocated to London to study under the Quay Brothers. His film No is E won the Terayama Shuji Prize at the Image Forum Festival 2007, and he was prominently featured at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2008, where Elements of Nothing was nominated for the Tiger Award. Since then, Makino has participated in more than 30 international film festivals and video art festivals. His work has recently been shown at Tate Modern, BFI London, and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

About Empty Gallery
Empty Gallery is a 4,500-square-foot space located at the edge of Aberdeen Harbor in Tin Wan, Hong Kong. Founded by Stephen Cheng, the gallery showcases both established and emerging artists alongside a program of pioneering multimedia commissions, performances and music. With a special commitment to ephemeral, time-based, and non-object-oriented practices, Empty Gallery is committed to fostering conversation across cultural, geographic, and medium-specific boundaries while serving as a regional hub for the flourishing East Asian art scene.

In ancient Chinese philosophy, a dome is a metaphor for heaven, an unreachable boundary for all human life perpetuating beneath. A dome can also reflect an individual consciousness or truth, which is shaped by experiences of time and space to create memories, dreams and illusions.

Karin Weber Gallery is excited to present three new Chinese artists in ‘Triple Domes: Works by Huang Zhe, Hong Dan and Yang Fang Tao.’ ‘Triple Domes’ echo each artist’s own time and memory streams, loosely shaped by a shared national boundary and ethnicity, yet entirely individual in the way that perceived boundaries are transcended and new expressive heights are reached.

By skilfully combining painting and laser materials, Huang Zhe presents what diffusion would look like when the spectrum of light is dissolved. Inspiring these dazzling works is the artist’s own fascination with the contemporary cityscape’s innate interrelationship, one that is both addictive and mesmerizing. Hong Dan’s paintings adopt distinctive forms of mutation. The interplay between materials and their presentation is what can be seen in diaries or albums, connecting the lives and thoughts of the past and presence, showcasing different colors and textures. Yang Fang Tao’s solitary boy in blue is someone who looks for a return to his own secrets under the dome of heaven, be it in nature or in the city, he runs, gazing upward, as he circles among maze-like pathways.

About the Artists:
Huang Zhe (b. 1984, lives and works in Shanghai)
Graduated from the China Academy of Art in 2010 with a MFA, majoring in sculpture. Huang has mainly shown in Shanghai, including the 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum, Lingang Contemporary Art Museum, the SPSI Art Museum and MOCA Shanghai. International shows include the Kraine Gallery in New York and a 2007 residency in Paris. Huang Zhe’s works are in major private collections in Shanghai and Beijing, as well as the UBS corporate collection.

Hong Dan (b.1982 in Pujiang, Zhejiang Province, China)
Currently teaching at Zhejiang University of Media Communication, Hong holds a MFA from the Department of Oil Painting at the China Academy of Art, and a BA from the Academy of Fine Arts, Zhejiang Normal University (2004), also with a major in oil painting. Her key shows to date include Van Art Space, Hangzhou, China and ‘Annals of Floating Islands’ at Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong.

Yang Fang Tao (b.1985, Shantao, Guangdong Province, China)
Yang graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2008, and has shown widely in Guangzhou, with some initial exposure in Beijing and Shanghai. This is his/ her debut show in Hong Kong.

About the Curator:
Peng Jie (b.1977, lives and works in Shanghai and Shenzhen)
Curator and founder of Shenzhen-based art consultancy HUXIA PRJOECTS, Peng Jie holds a MA from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and a BA from Huazhong Normal University. Before setting up his own consultancy, Peng was active as the Executive Vice Director of the Zhi Art Museum in Chengdu, and Head of Research and Curation at the OCT Art and Design Gallery in Shenzhen, and Curator in Guangdong Art Museum.

The exhibition showcases 40 pieces of important oil and paper work of the artist Xie Jinglan (also known as Lalan) which represent her three significant creation periods from the late 1950s to 1990s.

Lalan (1921 – 1995) was a legend. Being the first wife of Zao Wou-ki, she was a talented composer, dancer and painter. She moved to Paris with Zao Wou-ki in 1948. Since their divorce in 1957, Lalan had never ceased painting till an accident took her life in 1995. Despite the difficulty to be a Chinese female artist in France then, Lalan demonstrated great determination and courage to pursue her dreams.

Inspired by her music and her dancing, Lalan’s abstract paintings are driven by an inner voice and motions from within. From her early abstract paintings with vivid calligraphic lines and symbols, through the subtle and introspective landscapes inspired by the spirit of traditional Chinese paintings in Song and Yuan Dynasties in the 1970s, she went further to the delicate and rhythmic abstract paintings intertwined with dancing movements in the late period. Ignoring any trends, she only did what she believed.

Her works are collected by the Culture Ministry of France, Musee d’ Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Shanghai Art Museum, Macau Museum of Art, etc.

Pékin Fine Arts is pleased to present 3DPRK, a collaborative project with Slovenian photographer Matjaž Tančič (b. 1982) and Beijing‐based North Korean art specialists Koryo Studio, on exhibit in China for the first time.

Matjaž Tančič’s portraits of local people from across North Korea were photographed using a 3D stereoscopic technique. This landmark collection shows not only the citizens of Pyongyang – North Korea’s showcase capital – but also ordinary workers, farmers, educators, athletes and entertainers living in Hamhung, North Korea’s second largest city, as well as from elsewhere across the country.

The team of five (photographer, producer, two North Korean guides, one driver) also photographed soldiers at the DMZ at the North-South Korean border, and visited schools, hospitals and leisure facilities considered the pride of the reclusive state. Officially invited to document North Korea in 3D, Slovenian photographer Matjaž Tančič aimed to portray something of the people who live there, stripped of rhetoric.

Choosing to take portraits of people in North Korea invites controversy, criticism and significant challenges. In the eyes of the Western world, North Korea is one of the few countries where photographic voyeurism is celebrated. Working within the rules of the North Korean regime invites accusations of being naďve – or, worse, a ‘useful idiot’ – of taking on the work of a complex and powerful propaganda machine.

North Korea is one of the world’s most restrictive societies; all visitors must be invited, and all are required to travel with official guides. Foreign press and picture taking is restricted, and there is an inherent distrust of Western photographers. Capturing a ‘rare glimpse’ of a North Korean taps into a colonial desire to be the ‘first’, and thus captures the interest of a Western audience. But that ‘rare glimpse’ has become so oxymoronically common, we can now call it a trope of North Korean photography.

Forgotten, or dismissed, in this never-ending quest for unseen images, however, are the subjects of these ‘rare glimpses’ – the North Korean people whose images have been captured. These people are among those with the least personal agency on Earth, decision-making within their lives often governed by the politics and principles of The State. Hard enough in most circumstances, but more so in North Korea – how do you capture the authentic experience of a person in a photograph?

Tančič works in 3D, a technique that requires patience and understanding from the subject – standing motionless for minutes while multiple photographs are captured to cover the requisite perspectives. In a country where people are wary of the Western-wielded camera, persuading people not disposed to prolong the process of taking photographs in public spaces was no small task.

These are not reportage photographs, taken off the cuff with or without the subject’s knowledge. These are posed and painstakingly explained images. Out of the frame of each picture is a supporting cast of producers, translators, advisors, bosses, managers and guides – describing the technique, explaining the intent, collecting information, cracking jokes and suggesting staging. These moments are recorded in a documentary video that accompanies the exhibition.

As with all portraits, these photographs depict living human beings, upon whose gaze audiences may project what they will. Each protagonist agreed to be photographed, and was well aware that their image would be exhibited to a wider world. Perhaps it is the individual in daily life that shines out the most from these photographs; each portrait has its own distinct personality, ranging from disdain to pride.

The unique and weird beauty of the 3D technique used for each photograph ultimately highlights the individual nature of the people posing for each shot, and the various layers that make up the surreal theatrical set that is the DPRK today.